


You run

by cozyblanket



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: 'congratulations! you have now a wife!' lol, Accidental Bonding, Alternate Universe, Blood and Injury, Concept, Cultural Differences, Death, F/M, Fighting, He travels, Healing, Mages, Minor Violence, Misconception, Near Death Experiences, Reader suffers, Sans panicking, Sans the delivery boy instead of sans the skeleton, Short, Some Swearing, first time posting, soulbond, tribes, what are tags /s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25498876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cozyblanket/pseuds/cozyblanket
Summary: You ran and ran and ran, till your feet couldn’t carry you anymore.
Relationships: Sans (Undertale)/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This little story was written back in 2018. It was just a concept that I had wanted to write back then [instant soulbonding]. The writing is quite different from how I do things now. It had been a fun exercise and I left it at those three chapters as I was not invested enough to make it a full series. I edited a couple of parts and gave it a finishing end line before I finally decided ‘hey, why not just post it?’
> 
> And here we are in 2020 where I finally did exactly that.

-Red-

You ran and ran and ran, till your feet couldn’t carry you anymore. So cold, oh so cold. The wind kissed your cheeks and the snow greeted you greedily with its cold. Even all the running wasn’t making your warmer – it was the opposite; all the sweat brought your body closer to new minus degrees. You were already past the point of feeling your fingers and toes, and it wouldn’t be long when you would lose all feeling and just fall into the snow. And about now collapsing into the snow didn’t even register to you as bad, no, it called to you in fact invitingly, sweetly…

 _‘Why won’t you take a rest? It’s been so long now, hasn’t it?’_ It indeed had been. You never stopped, you always kept going – that it had to happen when a blizzard was about, was just a misfortune.

‘ _Just…take a rest…you will feel better…when you wake up…’_ You running pace had ceased long gone to a slow walk; dragging one foot by another, you tripped with a grunt.

“I’m an idiot…” You whispered. For a minute you didn’t bother to stand up again, letting a thin blanket of snow tuck you in. Besides the gushing wind it was still, but you knew better. Even in the midst of freezing to death you were still ‘the prideful stuck-up brat’ as you were so often called and in this instance your stubborn pride was well-meant.

Quickly as you could, despite your muscles screaming at the motion, you hid behind a mound of snow that could conceal your form well. The crunching of snow made you know of the position of your persecutor. Some would find it maybe a morbid thing to do, but you couldn’t help it – slightly the end of your lips curled upwards in an almost smile; a smirk you never really meant nor could help.

The human man never stood a chance as you took him by surprise, tackling him into the ground and ramming your hunters knife straight into his chest; the hide he wore being of no resistance to the sharp blade. Only gurgling noises escaped the dying man, the blood pouring from the wound making him suck in a shuddering breath, you could guess what he wanted to say; it wasn’t hard, then his eyes spoke it all and you knew it all too well, it was nothing new after all. The defensive smile you still had plastered over yourself didn’t help either, it made you look like you were waiting for his words, expecting them.

“You wretch…they will get you… _they will_ … _geehh…ha…h…a…_ ” A croaked chuckle, the last, escaped him as the man went slack. The blood continued to flow painting everything red around the dead tribesman, his cruel smile was still in place and his rueful eyes left open. Hesitantly your bloody hand hovered above his eyes, wanting to close them and give him his last prayer, but at the same time you didn’t; instead your hand bunched into a fist and hit the ground, next to the dead man’s head, in anger, snow flew everywhere from the impact.

Who were you kidding? If it were your dead body, they wouldn’t bother doing any of those things…the last they would do…is give you your prayer…. Your body would be left rotten-cold and unclean.

Standing up, no longer hovering over the dead man, you stashed your knife away, wary on your feet, you breathed heavy. Out of focus and tired you didn’t pay attention to the multiple crunching of footsteps a short distance away. Only when an arrow grazed your upper arm were you aware of the further company. A small hiss escaped you – cloth torn and the skin scraped and irritated, of where the arrow actually struck. Unsteady and swaying; it missed. Ironic how being exhausted actually should make you an easier target, not harder.

Three tribesmen – all with their bows aimed at you. You stared in their direction, and they stared back; their gazes knowing… _familiar_. Were circumstances different there wouldn't be hesitation - that it in the first place even barely lingered, was already a surprise enough. The onslaught shouldn’t have stopped. The arrow shouldn’t have only grazed you. Your corpse should have been already lying in the snow. There shouldn’t be so much meaning in their stance, not with how they hated and despised you, not with how much they wanted to hunt you down. The respect they were trying to show by that made you only angry and more infuriated, because you were already past that honor. That respect should have been there to begin with, so it wouldn’t haven even ended up coming to this.

You caught how their eyes moved slowly from you to your former pursuer lasting for a quiet moment before hardening in resentment and returning to your face – and you couldn’t help it, your chipped ‘smile’ returned, and that’s when they let go of their bowstrings and the arrows barreled for you.

Everything afterwards was a blur of you running and dodging the attacks as fast as you could with the snow going up to your lower legs. The pain in your back had you know - _they had hit their mark._ It staggered you, but needless to say you kept going, gnashing your teeth in aggrievance, the screams and roars from the huntsmen washing over you. Somewhere the back of your mind had been screaming, the way you were going was a dead end in the form of a cliff, but everything was hazy and loud. And colors. Colors were everywhere – whites, reds, blues, browns…; they repeated. Swirling until you couldn’t see the ground clearly, until all there was and had been left was white and red; and they repeated too – with the voice in the back silent.

_White. Red. White. Red. White. Red. White. Red..._

The last sensation, you knew, was falling before a sensory overload of pain spread through you whole being leading you to lose your consciousness with your last thought being how warm the snow now felt, noting how everything felt warm. . . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapters will come quickly, in the next two days!


	2. Chapter 2

-White-

Sans didn’t really know why he had decided, or had thought for that matter, that it was marginally even a good idea being out in this weather when, for crying out loud, a blizzard was at its peak wreaking havoc that made even standing still rooted to the ground difficult.

He wasn’t usually so nosy in business that clearly wasn’t his to prod, and if anything he would have been home by now and not still in this frozen heap of wasteland. Only one thing really had deterred him – making him think about his decisions; he would not hear the end from this when Papyrus found out what had held him up.

The endeavors – that his brother might not be particularly fond of – which Sans tended to, took a lot of his time often traveling. Yes, he knew, if push ought to come, someone else could easily play courier; it wasn’t like he was the sole supplier – he just did the job the best, and that was that; plus it was the only chance for him, to see a different scenery than what he had grown accustomed to in his hometown. Granted not a lot of people fancied getting through a tundra in the middle of a snowstorm.

The screams that had barreled through the awful, snow-cold quiet had, of course, made him stop on his route home and he had recognized the shouts: _‘s a v a g e s’_ , for a split second his mind had rudely supplied before he righted himself, _‘why are mountainfolk here…around the edges?’_

And that indeed was odd, whatever you wanted to call them: savages, mountainfolk, hill people or just the people who live ‘up there’; they never went as far as to the edges to the lowlands that you could hear them so clearly. A rare occurrence. _What had brought these humans to the edges?_

He would have ignored it, gone on with his business, heck, he wouldn’t have even recognized the subtle change in the air if he hadn’t paid such rapt attention to everything the moment he heard those screams and roars - that, no doubt, were meant for the hunt - of the tribespeople. And it was too late when he had felt _it_ , he already had left the carriage in the direction where the screams had come from; the dead quiet after only spurred him on to be faster in his steps which was easier said than done with the awful weather resisting him; once again he berated himself in advance for worrying Papyrus. 

He really didn’t know what he expected. Hadn’t thought about it. He was after all only responding to the call. He knew if he didn’t… _he knew…if he…di **dn’t…di—**_

Sans breath hitched, exhaustion mixed with it, he came to a stop, when he arrived to what one would probably call the ‘murder scene’ or the place where it ‘happened’.

_‘a chunk of meat’_ , that was what was _before him_ , what he _saw_ , _‘…a chunk of meat…’._ No, no, he knew better, _‘human…a human’_ , of course, but with how the human looked…it might as well have been just a bloody meat sack left to rot. Looking up, he winced; it had fallen from the edge.

What was it doing here? It’d been so long the last time he had seen one – a human. He was surprised he had even recognized it as such, dismissing the obvious carnage and blood, he wouldn’t have known otherwise – but monsters, _his kind…they don’t **bleed.**_

Feeling braver, he took a closer look at the human, shuffling within reach to its body.

_‘human…female…maybe?’_ He couldn’t tell, with how the body lied on its front, he could only see the back; though if it was anything to go by it was merely smaller than him, which didn’t mean much as all humans were pretty much ‘small’ in comparison to monsters and Sans himself for a monster wasn’t really tall. He was reluctant before, but now his eye-lights landed on the place where the red seeped out. _‘…severely injured…are those…arrows? …was it being hunted?’_

He grimaced at the sight; four arrows were nastily wedged into the skin, two had their rods broken which had happened likely from the tumble down. It was bizarre, he thought, how humans were towards their own sometimes. Sans hadn’t realized how close he had come to the human until he touched its nape, slightly above the injury. He almost recoiled when he felt it move-- no, not move, _but breathe_. It _breathed_. It was **alive**.

Cautiously he moved the human, and turned it slowly around; not letting it touch the ground with its injured back, he held the human’s upper body in a slight sitting position. The unconscious and pained face of a human female greeted him. He had never been so close to a human, least of all had he ever touched one before; he almost marveled at the sight. A tint adventurous; he found himself daring to touch the human’s face in an almost caressing manner.

Human skin was rather bizarre, he found; no monster had it quite like – it was either feathers and fur or goo and (in his case) bones. _But skin_ ; it was something peculiar… _something distinctively human_. The skin gave way under the light pressure of distal phalanges tending to it; however the manipulation of flesh met an end when stumbling upon something _harder_. Cheekbones. Slowly from there he traced the bones up to the scalp and _\-- the human shakily exhaled at the sensation, its warm breath creating a small cloud that evaporated as fast as it came to be. It hit him like a stone._ Sans recoiled, his phalanges retreated as the sudden soberness took him. What had he be doing? He chastised himself. He looked nervously at the human, assessing it, he found some relief when its face was unchanged, _‘…still unconscious’_ ; still pliant in his hold.

The human was obviously still alive…but Sans couldn’t really help it… _or her_ , could he? And why would he? For all he knew there had been a good reason why this one had been hunted and almost killed. It really wasn’t his business; whatever _this_ was. Sans couldn’t help her. The human would die.

Whatever entrancement had hold him in place was gone; the wonder and childish curiosity he had upon seeing a human – _something new_ that made him almost forget himself shattered when he remembered where he was; when realization hit him. Without delay he removed himself from the body, creating a distance he stepped away. He turned halfway prepared to get back _– b u t t h e n . . ._

Ferocious. Atrocious. Just horrible. It took his breath if he had any. He actually felt weak to his knees.

Screams. Screams. It wouldn’t stop. Screams. Desperate. Pitiable. Wailing. Screams.

“…stop”

It just wouldn’t stop. So strong. The call was so strong. It overwhelmed him. So near.

“…please”

Melting. Was he melting? It felt like he was melting. The screams didn’t stop.

His magic reacted instantly. He couldn’t stop. All his instincts rammed against a wall.

Above floating was the soul. _Red. Red. Red. Red. Red. Red._ It chanted. It _called_. It **_screamed_**. And he…

_He answered._

_‘please stop crying’_

It was instantaneous. The white soul bonded to the red soul. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter. Hope you enjoyed it this far!  
> I'm currently writing three fics (the third one being a recent addition) that I have 'active'.  
> The first one being one I started 2019 that I wrote on and off, currently sitting at seven chapter in the making. It's a very very slow burn long fic. The second one is the opposite of that and will be a shorter story. 
> 
> Anyways, I will meet you there whenever I decide to post them here! Don't wait! Bye!

-After-

Fuck…! Was his first thought.

 _Shittt!_ His second.

He had really done it. Bonded to a human. Out of all things to happen. He bonded to a human…

When he came to himself, he almost doubled over again in the snow from the pain he felt. A pain that clearly wasn’t his. And it was worrying. If the bond let him feel such pain… _despite the human being unconscious…t h e n…_

 _“nononono…hey hey hey!!!”_ He scrambled in midst his panic to the dying human.

“c-come on…don’t…” The agony kept chocking him. Uncertain, his hands hovered over the body.

“d-don’t…” The human was dying, of course, Sans had already known that but now he was feeling it too. The wailing, the inner turmoil…it all had quieted down to a quiver. It was terrifying. _It was too quiet!_ Again, he held her, his bones shaking and shuddering ferociously from the pain that let him know his bonded was in danger. He needed to act now.

“hold on a little longer o-ok?” He felt everything cracking. He didn’t like the sickly blue hue on her skin.

“i…i’m not…good with healing magic,” he really wished Papyrus was here, his brother had a better control in situation like these and not to mention was actually a healer, “…but i will try, alright?”

“so…please…don’t give up.” He needed to get the rods out first…or they would mess with the healing. Holding his breath, he muttered a quick ‘i’m sorry’ in advance before he ripped the rods out in quick succession. The muscles spasm and twitched while the blood began to pour free what the arrows had held in. Sans quickly covered the wounds as best as he could with his phalanges and metacarpals, hoping that it wasn’t too much lost blood. 

Closing his eye-sockets, Sans focused on his magic to reflect his will to heal. Soon enough, a green sheen concentrated in his palm and slowly the healing magic flowed through and into the injuries. He didn’t know if it was him exhaling, - her, or the bond letting him feel a weight being lifted, in any case the relief was damn near palpable. He could feel, while not gone, the pain did lessen – the red soul was responding to his magic… _to him._

“you’re alright,” he muttered, “you’re alright,” he chuckled. It was resigned.

…

When he had found that he had brought her to a more stable condition and she wasn’t in imminent danger anymore, he made his way back to his carriage now with the human in tow. It was like the edges around him had listened to the cries and torment. The wind had stopped roaring and the path was clearing up – like it was relieved. _‘at least one thing went right…’_ , he thought to himself, as the subtle motions and vibrations from the uneven surface ground rocked his body mildly with the movement. The human was safely tucked away in the back, he hoped the thin wool sheets and blankets would help against the cold. Idly the first sunrays shimmered down after the initial clouds cleared, allowing everything to be basked in soft oranges and nice yellows. Besides the sometimes tired squeal of the tires, only one or the other bird chirp could be hear; it was quiet.

A long journey was ahead and Sans still didn’t know what he should tell his brother once he showed up with an injured human stuffed in the back of his cart…

He supposed, he could ponder about it along the way.

-End-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more end notes on this world:
> 
> In this world humans and monsters live in a mountainous area with parts which are known as the ‘edges’ where the mountain ground and human territory ends in a steep cliff [once down; no one can go up] and ‘lowlands’, a valley where monster live and thrive. 
> 
> Humans have various tribes and a hunting-culture, while monsters have small towns and villages with trade caravans connecting their settlements and a merchant-culture.
> 
> Both species live ‘peacefully’ isolated because of the edges. As such monsters have no idea what an actual human looks like up-close and humans have a general misconception on what they ‘think’ monsters look like. [Aka. The-Big-Bad-Monster-under-my-bed Type]
> 
> Mages are a very rare occurrence in humans and are seen by the tribal as unnatural and evil; belonging to monsters. Reader was unfortunate to be one and was since birth ostracized from her peers when she showed the first signs to be magical potent as a young child. She was only barely tolerated until a turning point happened and she was chased out of her tribe to the cliffs for starting an incident. Such things did indeed happen – unforgivable acts were punished with banishment and exile to the lowlands – only it was a death sentence as no on survives the fall down.
> 
> The only reason Reader survives in the first place is because she is a mage with a strong soul.
> 
> And because of that her soul was desperate enough to instantly bond to anyone in the vicinity. Yep, the bond was totally accidental (which both will have to deal with now).
> 
> The melting part was in reference to Readers high determination which monster can only handle in little doses, so yeah – it was actually _dangerous_ for Sans. He also only learns later on that she is a mage.
> 
> For what would have happened next:
> 
> When Reader wakes up in a warm cottage with her whole chest and back in bandages, tucked in a blanket, she panics in confusion, thinking she was kidnapped as a hostage. She immediately springs up to a sitting position and attacks the monster that is sitting next to her on the floor by falling on top of him and pinning him with her whole body to the ground. Before she reaches for her knife and realizes it isn’t on her, she crumbles weakly into herself from her injuries and Sans lays her back to her resting place – explaining that she is safe here.
> 
> Once she calms down, she learns about what happened – though being singled out by her tribe, she still has to fight the misconceptions about monsters that were ingrained into her for a lifetime – and comes to the realization that a monster has _indeed_ saved her. 
> 
> _And that she entered the final stage of a courtship with him._
> 
> As heads come crashing down and shouting ensues, both realize they have vastly different ideas of what courtship and marriage entails and how it goes. Both find themselves haggling and compromising with each other as the bond cannot be broken and they are forced to stay and live together for now. Sans grumbling that he can’t perform his trading job anymore (which Papyrus is overjoyed with) because he has to stay home for his bonded and Reader who is miffed about all her traditions and rules about marriage being thrown out of the window by this accidental bond – how can they learn to life together?
> 
> ~~(Also Sans learning how Reader was treated by her own tribe and why. Don't even get me started there.)~~
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little short. Have a good day!


End file.
